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As nominations close – who’s leading the race to be General Secretary of Labour’s biggest affiliate?

February 22, 2013 2:31 pm

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Nominations close today in the race to be General Secretary of Unite, and incumbent Len McCluskey is leading by almost 10 to 1 in the nomination stakes against challenger Jerry Hicks (who, LabourList readers may wish to note, is backed by the SWP and wants to slash funding to the Labour Party).

Final nomination totals won’t be available until March 1st (when we’ll bring you the final totals), but we understand that based on the current unverified totals, McCluskey has been nominated by 1046 Unite branches, compared to 136 for Hicks.

Voting in the election starts on March 18th.

Anon

It says something when Mr McCluskey is the moderate option
Redshift1

More damningly perhaps is the fact Jerry Hicks has never ran anything in his life. The idea that he could run a union the size of Unite with 1.5m members in more or less every sector is laughable.

If you’re a left-wing Labour Party member, Len couldn’t be more the man for the job. Backs Labour critically but comradely. Stands up for the union’s membership whatever sector they are in. Committed to expanding union membership (Unite increased their membership by 50,000 in the last year).

As for the SWP, they pulled out of the United Left grouping within Unite in order to back Hicks, after United Left backed Len McCluskey. Actually led to a Unite national executive member resigning his membership of the SWP, in order to remain in United Left. They should stop playing their sectarian games within the union.
Daniel Speight

McCluskey or Hicks. That must be a bit of quandary for Progress supporters;-)
Daniel Speight

McCluskey or Hicks. That must be a bit of quandary for Progress supporters;-)
Daniel Speight

McCluskey or Hicks. That must be a bit of quandary for Progress supporters;-)
Daniel Speight

McCluskey or Hicks. That must be a bit of quandary for Progress supporters;-)
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=715486331 Alex Otley
  
  They’ll probably go for Hicks because Progress hate the unions.
  - John Reid
    
    your saying that, as if that’s A bad thing,
Brumanuensis

McCluskey has to be the man. God help us if the SWP get anywhere near the tiller.

Then again, if McCluskey wins handsomely it might briefly shut up the individuals within the Party who keep shrieking hysterically about ‘infiltration’.
http://www.facebook.com/garry.mills2 Garry Mills

In a quandry, Unite Member, Companion and activist, Labour Party Member and campaigner, standing in County Council Elections – little or no support from my own union! United we do better – apart we let the Tory and their lackies the Liberals rule. Time for Labour to rediscover that we are a party of the left and we are a party for the working class.
http://www.facebook.com/ray.jones.3939503 Ray Jones

i don’t recall at any point hicks saying he would stop funding the party when he rightly question is members money been given to MP who oppose unite policy ie pay freeze’s for public sector workers
ColinAdkins

I never supported McCluskey in the last election but he has proven I made an incorrect decision in this respect with his confident and principled leadership of Unite. I have never (knowingly) voted for a trot in my life, let alone someone from the SWP and I am not going to start now.
Pingback: Stop negative campaigning in the Unite General Secretary election | Left Futures
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=715486331 Alex Otley

There’s a party that thinks the way you do. They are called the Tories.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=715486331 Alex Otley

There’s a party that thinks the way you do. They are called the Tories.

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